Chapter 1 - The Ghost in the Kitchen Sink
The air in Meline’s abandoned apartment was cold,
stagnant,
and smelled of the ghosts of a life Dominic had accidentally incinerated.
Dominic Valente stood in the center of the small kitchen,
his charcoal coat still dusted with the snow of a Chicago midnight.
He didn't look like a billionaire,
nor did he look like a king.
He looked like a man who had walked into a vacuum where his soul used to be.
Silas stood by the door,
his iPad glowing with the medical records that had changed everything.
"The hit was at 10:15 a.m. that morning,"
Silas said,
his voice low as if speaking to a grieving man.
"She was at the hospital while you were in the meeting with Seraphina."
Dominic didn't respond.
He walked toward the sink,
his leather shoes crunching on a small piece of debris.
He looked down.
It was a burnt matchstick.
He reached into the basin of the stainless-steel sink and ran his thumb over the drain.
His finger came back coated in a fine,
gray ash.
He brought it to his nose and inhaled.
It didn't just smell like burnt paper;
it smelled like the chemical ink of a photo.
The realization hit him like a physical blow to the sternum.
She had seen the engagement news.
She had heard his lies.
And she had stood right here,
in this tiny kitchen,
and burned the only image of his child because she thought he didn't want them.
"She saw us,"
Dominic whispered,
his voice a gravelly rasp.
"She stood in the hallway of my office and heard me call her a liability."
He gripped the edge of the counter so hard the stone began to crack beneath his strength.
The image of Meline,
pregnant and crying,
clutching an ultrasound while he played a game of thrones with Seraphina,
burned in his mind.
"Find her,"
he commanded,
his eyes flashing with a predatory,
dark light.
"I don't care if you have to hack every satellite in the Western Hemisphere."
"I don't care if you have to buy every airline and check every manifest."
"If she is breathing,"
"I want to know exactly where she is by dawn."
He looked back at the sink,
the ashes of his child's first image haunting him.
He had spent his life winning wars,
conquering territories,
and making men bleed for his respect.
But in this quiet apartment,
surrounded by the scent of her vanilla perfume and the coldness of her absence,
Dominic Valente realized he was losing the only war that mattered.
"Meline,"
he breathed into the silence.
"You can run to the ends of the earth,"
May you like
"but you are carrying a Valente."
"And a Valente always comes home."
